Kia EVs may even be made at Hyundai’s Georgia “Metaplant”

With Hyundai breaking floor on its mammoth $5.5 billion “Metaplant” close to Savannah, Georgia, Kia confirmed on Tuesday that it too could have upcoming electrical automobiles made on the facility. 

That was at all times a good assumption, however now it’s a affirmation. As Hyundai introduced in Might, it plans to make as much as 300,000 EVs yearly on the Georgia plant, together with fashions from Hyundai and Genesis—and now additionally, Kia. Batteries are to be made individually, at a corresponding battery enterprise but to be detailed. And Hyundai’s companion elements and parts arm Hyundai Mobis is reportedly on the lookout for close by websites. 

Kia already has a facility at West Level, Georgia, that makes Telluride, Sorento, and Sportage SUVs, in addition to the K5 sedan. So the brand new plant will discover house for U.S. EV meeting—and, doubtlessly, qualification of the model’s future EVs below the stricter necessities of the Inflation Discount Act and its revamped EV tax credit score. 

Manufacturing on the Georgia plant for Kia will begin within the first half of 2025. One of many prime candidates for manufacture there may be the Hyundai Ioniq 7, as previewed by the Seven idea. Kia’s EV9 electrical SUV reaches the U.S. in 2023, although it would doubtlessly be shifted to the plant. And the model is planning an electrical pickup that might be a possible candidate. 

As massive because the Hyundai plant sounds, it isn’t the biggest deliberate EV plant in Georgia. Rivian goals to make 450,000 electrical vehicles a yr in Georgia, with a plant because of begin manufacturing in 2024. Based on the Atlanta Journal-Structure, citing Hyundai and Genesis Motor North America CEO José Muñoz, the plant may very well be expanded to 500,000 items yearly and contain “possibly 5 – 6” upcoming EV fashions. 

These are solely the most recent in a sequence of selections which have been casting Georgia as a hub for EV manufacturing. Battery maker SK Innovation can be constructing twin Georgia battery vegetation that may have the ability to help 300,000 EVs per yr and is ramping as much as provide Ford and VW.